There's at least one educational topic on which academic researchers and the citizenry at large agree: parental involvement is critical to the success of both individual students and the schools they attend. A Mark Penn poll for Blueprint magazine showed that Americans think "not enough parental involvement" is the single most important cause of the problems in public schools; fully 47 percent of respondents cited it as the first or second most important concern among a broad array of options from class size to school choice.

The ever-increasing pressure for better academic achievement, the rising level of homework now required by most schools, and the growing linkage between educational attainments and well-paid jobs are all factors that are making parental involvement more critical each day.

Unfortunately, many policymakers are skeptical about the issue of parental involvement, often because they assume it's a problem beyond the legitimate reach of education policy. How, after all, can school officials really expect to teach parents to be good parents?

But as recent initiatives in Kentucky show, there are practical, constructive steps schools, communities, and civic institutions can take to greatly improve parental involvement in education. The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence (a private, non-profit education reform group) and the Kentucky-based National Center for Family Literacy, are intensively involved in "schooling parents" -- training parents on how to get involved in their children's schools, and, just as importantly, how to network with other parents to get school-wide student achievement projects under way.

As reported in the Lousiville Courier-Journal on November 27, a total of 700 Kentucky parents of public school students will have undergone intensive training by the Prichard Committee's Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership. The goal of the training, according to Bev Raimondo, the Institute's director, is "to create an army or a network who will go back to their schools and work with other parents." A particular object of the training is to teach parents about the language and structure of public education, including standards and assessments, state and local programs, and the specific skills their kids are expected to master.

The biggest challenge to parental involvement in schools is among low-income families, where parents often have far less time for non-work activities, and less experience in dealing with public authorities, but whose kids most need help at school and at home in making the grade. This is the specialty of the National Center for Family Literacy in Louisville, an organization that grew out of Kentucky's especially severe legacy of inter-generational illiteracy. NCFL has helped set up family literacy programs in 3,000 sites around the country aimed at involving parents in their children's education, improving their own skills, and increasing the amount of time parents and children spend together in educational activities at home.

Both these Kentucky-based programs reflect an understanding that parental involvement needs to go beyond token participation in school-sponsored activities, and a realization that different parents have different problems in becoming fully engaged in their children's education.

If we continue to expect parents to become more involved in schools, we must get serious about schooling them in how to get involved in a realistic and constructive way.